Background

UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and Inclusive Finance

UNCDF provides investment capital and technical support to both the public and the private sector. It provides capital financing -- in the forms of grants, soft loans and credit enhancement – and the technical expertise to unleash sustainable financing at the local level.  

UNCDF’s work on inclusive finance seeks to develop inclusive financial systems and ensure that a range of financial products is available to all segments of society, at a reasonable cost, and on a sustainable basis. UNCDF supports a wide range of providers (e.g. microfinance institutions, banks, cooperatives, money transfer companies) and a variety of financial products and services (e.g. savings, credit, insurance, payments, and remittances). UNCDF also supports newer delivery channels (e.g. mobile phone networks) that offer tremendous potential for scale.

Shaping Inclusive Finance Transformations (SHIFT) Programme

The ASEAN region is home to more than 600 million people spread across 10 countries. Despite the dynamism of the region, there are significant contrasts between and within the countries, with three LDCs coexisting with some of the world’s largest and most vibrant economies, resulting in 20 per cent of the world’s poorest people living alongside some of the world’s richest

UNCDF has developed a regional programme in ASEAN called SHIFT (Shaping Inclusive Finance Transformations), with initial funding from the Australian Government, FMO and UNCDF’s own resources.

Programme Outcome: At least 6 million low-income individuals, micro-entrepreneurs, and small and medium businesses, including women and young people transition from using informal financial mechanisms to more formalized financial services by the year 2020.

Programme Outputs

• Fund Facility: Support financial service providers to develop new prototypes and bring to scale viable business models that serve low-income individuals, micro-entrepreneurs, and small and medium businesses, especially women within these markets, in the ASEAN frontier economies;
• Learning & Capacity Building: Support business development service providers by leveraging ICT solutions to develop and bring to scale viable e-learning models for professionals in financial institutions to improve productivity and professionalism;
• Data and Analysis Hub: Produce, consolidate and communicate data and information on supply, demand and regulation in financial markets to strengthen the evidence base and investment decisions of providers, regulators and policy makers, specifically targeted towards low-income individuals, micro-entrepreneurs, and small and medium business, especially women within these markets;
• Policy and Advocacy: Influence policy makers, financial service providers and governments to enable financial markets to be more responsive to the wider development priorities of governments and its people.

The SHIFT Challenge Fund has been in implementation for several years and will be launching a joint window with UN Pulse Lab Jakarta, titled the Microenterprise FinTech Innovation Challenge. The target of this digital solutions innovation Challenge Fund Window is to promote and accelerate usage of digital technology solutions for microenterprises in Indonesia that result in increased usage of financial services, productivity, efficiency, income and/or employment, etc. for this segment, increasing actors’ ability to expand and upscale their business operations.

UNCDF also runs two other programmes in the ASEAN region: UNCDF CleanStart, which focuses on financing for clean energy solutions; and UNCDF Mobile Money for the Poor (MM4P), which helps build inclusive digital financial sectors using a market development approach that combines a mix of technical, financial and policy support.

Objectives

The objective of this consultancy is to: a) facilitate successful implementation of the Microenterprise FinTech Innovation Challenge; b) build partnerships for generating a pipeline of investments in the selected projects; c) build partnerships for upscaling innovations and implementation of SHIFT programme objectives; d) ensure representation of UNCDF and UN Pulse Lab Jakarta on the Challenge Fund; e) maintain communication and share progress with stakeholders; f) liaise and work with financial sector regulators; and g) document and submit progress reports.

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of services

Key work areas will include:

• Fund Implementation Support  
• Screening queries from existing and future stakeholders related to the applications, and report to the Fund Facility Coordinator for responding.
• Support the Fund Facility Coordinator in the development of collaborations and partnerships between potential grantees to meet the objectives of the fund facility.
• Keep abreast of emerging market trends, innovations and market risks.
• Identifying technical and regulatory needs of selected projects and developing mentorship sessions to guide the projects.

Additional follow-up work as requested by the Evaluation Committee

• Additional due diligence investigation as requested by Evaluation Committee.
• Providing any clarifications or further information requested by Evaluation Committee.
• Fund Management and Knowledge Management  
• Support the Fund Facility Coordinator with assessing grantees ability to scale and analysis of trends.
• Assist the Fund Facility Coordinator with communicating with grantees on an as needed basis to document lessons learned and business case studies.
• Develop presentations and prepare information for external communications and dissemination.
• Ensure that grantees provide detailed quarterly reports on time.
• Support the Fund Facility Coordinator with maintaining regular communication with grantees to ensure than stakeholders are aware of achievements and challenges in the project implementation.
• Prepare business analysis case studies based on based on project implementation and enabling or challenging market factors.

Expansion of UNCDF SHIFT work in Indonesia

• Liaise with regulators and stakeholders to identify needs for further programme development.
• Based on financial/FinTech sector needs, develop concepts for further programme expansion.
• Build partnerships with stakeholders for upscaling innovation.

Expected Outputs

• Quarterly reports on Microenterprise FinTech Innovation Challenge grantees, including business model analysis, partner capability analysis and grant impact analysis.
• Design and conduct of mentorship sessions for grantees based on their technical and regulatory needs for implementation.
• Development and editing of blogs, articles, papers and other publications to inform readers of Microenterprise FinTech Innovation Challenge progress in driving financial inclusion in Indonesia.
• Quarterly Reports on regulator and partnership coordination meetings
• Milestone reports for the Microenterprise FinTech Innovation Challenge projects.

Duration of Assignment, Duty Station and Expected Places of Travel

Contract duration: 100 days spread over 10 months – commending on October 2018 to August 2019

Duty Station and expected places of travel: The consultant is expected to work at UN Pulse Lab Jakarta office in Jakarta, Indonesia with the possibility of travels to UNCDF Regional Office in Bangkok.   The schedule of travel will be determined according to the requirements of each programme country.    If a travel schedule is agreed, the travel costs associated to the assignment will be paid as reimbursable basis and following the UNDP/UNCDF rules and regulations which states that consultants shall only be paid the most direct and most economical ticket, as will be quoted by the official UN travel agency.  Any amount in excess of the said quotation, such as class and airline preference of the consultant, shall be borne by the consultant.  Lodging and terminal expenses shall not exceed those allowed within UNCDF policy. Please note that consultants that are home-based will not be compensated for living expenses.

Monitoring and Progress Control

The consultant will work under the direct supervision of the Fund Facility Coordinator in Bangkok.

Payment will be made upon submission of final deliverable(s) to the satisfaction of Fund Facility Coordinator in Bangkok, which shall be formalized through a written acceptance of outputs and explicit authorization of release of payment.

Competencies

• Ability to establish priorities, plan, coordinate and monitor own work;
• Demonstrates aptitude in business planning and financial modelling;
• Ability to speak comfortably with enterprises about their businesses;
• Good project management skills;
• Demonstrates ethics and integrity;
• Demonstrates calculated risk taking;
• Ability to work in a multicultural environment;
• Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure;
• Displays cultural and gender sensitivity and adaptability.
   

Required Skills and Experience

Education

• A Master’s Degree in Business Administration, Economics, Social Sciences, or related discipline. A Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration, Economics, Social Sciences, or related discipline with additional 2 years of experience at national or international level will be considered in lieu of a Master’s degree.

Experience

• 5 years of work experience within the FinTech, banking and/or technology sector;
• Deep knowledge and wide network within the Indonesian FinTech, start-up businesses, Agri-tech, Insurance-tech markets;
• 2 years of experience working with challenge fund, grant oversight or investment related skills;
• 2 years of experience in working with MSME sector;
• General knowledge of UN system and Development issues is desirable.

Languages

• Fluency in English (written and verbal) is required.

Evaluation of Candidates

Individual consultants will be evaluated based on the following methodology.

Cumulative analysis
The award of the contract will be made to the individual consultant on Cumulative Analysis/evaluation and determined as:

• Responsive/compliant/acceptable; and
• Having received the highest score out of a pre-determined set of weighted technical and financial criteria specific to the solicitation.

Only candidates obtaining a minimum 70% mark in technical evaluation, including desk review and interview, will be considered eligible for financial evaluation.

Technical Evaluation Criteria (Total 70 marks):

Experience (50marks)

• 5 years of work experience within the FinTech, banking and/or technology sector;
• Deep knowledge and wide network within the Indonesian FinTech, start-up businesses, Agri-tech, Insurance-tech markets;
• Experience working with challenge fund, grant oversight or investment related skills;
• Experience in working with MSME sector;
• Interest in the UN system and general knowledge of development issues is a plus.

Competencies (20 marks)

• Ability to establish priorities, plan, coordinate and monitor own work;
• Demonstrates aptitude in business planning and financial modelling;
• Ability to speak comfortably with enterprises about their businesses;
• Good project management skills;
• Demonstrates ethics and integrity;
• Demonstrates calculated risk taking;
• Ability to work in a multicultural environment;
• Remains calm, in control and good humored even under pressure;
• Displays cultural and gender sensitivity and adaptability.

Financial Evaluation (Total 30 marks):

All technical qualified proposals will be scored out 30 based on the formula provided below. The maximum points (30) will be assigned to the lowest financial proposal. All other proposals received points according to the following formula: p = y (µ/z), where:

•    p = points for the financial proposal being evaluated;
•    y = maximum number of points for the financial proposal;
•    µ = price of the lowest priced proposal;
•    z = price of the proposal being evaluated.

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications. Proposers who shall not submit below mentioned documents will not be considered for further evaluation.

Application Procedure

Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications. Proposers who shall not submit below mentioned documents will not be considered for further evaluation.

• When applying for this consultancy position, please apply with your official name as shown in the government issued identification document (e.g. passport and/or driver license). Contract award is subject to this verification;
• Personal CV or P11, indicating all past experience from similar projects, as well as the contact details (email and telephone number) of the Candidate and at least three (3) professional references; link to P11: http://sas.undp.org/documents/P11_Personal_history_form.doc;
• Brief description of why the individual considers him/herself as the most suitable for the assignment, and a methodology, if applicable, on how they will approach and complete the assignment;
• Cover letter explaining why you are the most suitable candidate for the advertised position. Please paste the letter into the "Resume and Motivation" section of the electronic application;
• Confirmation of interest and Financial proposal: Template for Confirmation of Interest and Submission of Financial Proposal
• Earliest Availability.

 Individual Consultants are responsible for ensuring they have vaccinations/inoculations when traveling to certain countries, as designated by the UN Medical Director. Consultants are also required to comply with the UN security directives set forth under dss.un.org.

Both individual consultants and individuals employed by a company or institution are welcome to apply. Any individual employed by a company or institution who would like to submit an offer in response to a Procurement Notice for IC must do so in their individual capacity (providing a CV so that their qualifications may be judged accordingly).

Women candidates or women-owned businesses are strongly encouraged to apply. UNCDF is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.

Please include all documents into one file while submitting your application.

References

UNDP’s Individual Consultant’s General Terms and Conditions are provided here:
http://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/documents/procurement/documents/IC%20-%20General%20Conditions.pdf